Labeling machine



April 25, 1950 G. OLM

LABELING MACHINE 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed April 19, 1946 M ATTORNEY I: Sheets-Sheet 2 ll q #1 .30

INVENTOR 660/ 96 0/772 BY WW ATTORNEY G OLM LABELING MACHINE A ril 25, 1950 Flled Aprll 19, 1946 April 25, 1950 a. OYLM LABELING MACHINE r'lled April 19, 1946 s Shelets-Sheet s INVENTOR 660/106 film BY M M ATTORNEY Patented Apr. 25, 1950 LABELING MACHINE George )lm, Astoria, -N. Y., assignor to Edward Ermold, Company, New York, N. Y., a, corporation of New York Application pril 19', 1946, Serial No. 663,348

- This invention relates to labelling machines, and has for its object to provide means for securing neck labels to the bottle necks.

As neck labels extend more than 180 aroun i the circumference of the neck of the bottle, the

known wipers like those used -for applying the main labels to the body of the bottle fail in securing the ends of the neck labels to the bottles beyond the frontal 180' of the bottle neck. The

problem of efiiciently securing-the ends of the label to the rear 180 surface of the bottle neck by automatic mechanical means became imf portant. i 1

The invention consists in the provision -of wipers of yieldable and resilient rubber or the like with a concave contour at eachoftheir inner surfaces, withthe portion ofthe wipers of lesser thickness secured to supports and with the portion of the wipers of greater thickness cs tending free of the support, the wipers with the gradually decreasing space between them acting as a pressure means upon the portion of the neck label which extends over the lateral sides of the bottle (in contrast to thefront and rear sides), and thethickest ends ofthe wipers acting over the label ends at'therear ofthebottle; when the ends of the wipers of less'thickness have been brought near each other. With thepassage of the bottle between the wipers, the wipers act as pressure members along the rear 180 of the neck circumference topress the ends of theneck label against therear portion of the bottle neck, the inward lnherent resiliencyof the outwardly pressed thickened ends of the wipers serving to exert a pressure action against the rear ends of the neck label. I 1

The invention consists further in the means for actuating the wipers from their openposi tion to their closing position, which comprise vertical rods to whichthe, horizontally disposed wipers are secured, and means for laterally moving a'pair of such vertical rods in respect to the vertical axis ofthe bottle, either in continuous movement or in continuous movement with time interludes, as may be desired. Such vertical rods are alternatelysecured-to horizontally mov able bars, and these are actuated in opposite directions, by a pinion meshing with racks on such bars, one of'said bars being actuated bya lever inturn actuated by the aid of intermediary means controlled by a' camof a contour deter mining either the continued orintermittent movement of the vertical rods, and hence the wipers-which are arranged in ahorizontal plane, and which have vertical contours through which the neck of the bottle to be-lab elled passes .The invention will be further described-here inafter, embodiments thereofshown in. the drawings, and the invention wil1 be..finally pointed out..in-the .claims. a

In the accompanying drawings,

Figs. 1 to 4 are diagrammatic views showing the various positions of the improved wiper in relation to a bottle neck; Fig. 5 is a rear view of a part of the labelling machine showing the application of the improvementthereto; r 3.

Fig. 6 is asectional side view taken on line 6-6 of Fig. 5 omitting the cam, follower and gearing of Fig. 5;

Fig. is a top view taken on line 'I-" I "of Fig. 8 is a front view of Fig. 7;

Fig. 9 is a vertical transverse section taken line 99 of Fig. 8;

Fig. 10- is a bottom view of part of Fig.8! Fig. 11 is a top view of one of the Wipers; and

Fig. 12 is a face view of the wiper shown in Fig. 11.

Similar characters of reference indicate corre spending parts throughout the various views.

Referring to the drawings and more particularly to'Figs. l to 4, the bottle is moved in the direction of the arrow I by the known bottle pushers (not shown) of a known labelling machine to a position between the spread out wipers In as shown in Fig. 1. Means for applying a glued label 8 to the front of a bottle arepalt'of a standard labelling machine and are not shown in the drawings.

The improved wipers It are made of rubber or the like, and have a rigidity to maintain themin their initial shape until force is applied. They have an inherent resiliency to return them to their initial contour after any deformation has resulted from applied pressure. The inner faces 10a of the wipers Iii are curved and the ends Hb are angular shaped to provide a backing for the tips la. The outer faces are straight. In consequence, one end is of greater thickness than the other end. The thinner ends have bores through which screw bolts [4 pass and these screw bolts i4 have their heads in countersunk portions of the wipers. Such screw bolt [4 has threads, which engage a threaded bore lid of a metal support I l which has a bore l5a, for the entrance of a vertical rod l5, secured by screw bolts [2 to the metal support I l'. Preferably each wiper has afiange Illa seated in a recess ltb of the support ll. I A pair of wipers H] to provide a secure hold in addition to the screw bolt l4 with each concave curved part Illa facing each other, and a wiper at each lateral' side of a bottle neck are arranged to apply a label. The vertical rods I5 are moved towards and from each other, preferably intermittently timed with the progress of movement of the bottle through apair of Wipers i0. 7 i a The first position ofj the wipers is showrrin Fig. 1, the bottle neck 9 having just received its label 8 due to the movement of the bottle on its track against a label bearing an adhesive, which label has just been released from a label support, as known inthe labelling machine art.

As the bottle continues to be moved on its track, the wipers are moved towards each other by the vertical rods 55, and thereby the label is neck, at the transverse diameter of the'bottle neck at ri ht angles to the direction of movement of the bottle, butpress beyond the 180 part of the neck, and thereby press the ends of the label against the rear part of the bottle neck (F ig-. 3). As the bottle continues in'its movement, the, ends Hoof the wipers move along the ends of the label giving a pressure to th same, and,so say, snap along the ends of the label, Whilethe bottle moves beyond the wipers (Fig. .4). The la e 8 may be lon r thanas sh and ti l as its ends pressed by the wipers.

The wipers iii are then moved away iromeach other to their extreme open position as shown-in Fig. 1, ready for the neat bottle andits neck-label ap l ation.

The closing movement of the wipers is sub.- stantially continuous, but preferably these wipers have momentary rest periods, to more securely ca s the adh s ve t a here, and u 00 1 111 ous closing with such preferred intermittent or momentary rest periods, may be readily accomplished by the shape of the cam on the camgear, and the cam may be shaped by any mechanic when instructed so to do, and therefore the out: line of the cam is not shown in the drawings.

With the foregoing operation in mind, the operative mechanism will now be described.

Referring now to Figs. '5 to 10, the bottles 9 are moved by well known means forming a part of a known labelling machine, along the tracksv 30, suitably supported by the frame 3,! of the labelling machine. The upper part of the frame 3| suitably supports a bell crank lever 32, by the inter mediary of a bracket 33. The end of this lever 3i. engages a vertical pin fixed to a movable. bar Ma (Fig. 10). A pinion 36 is rotatable .rnounted on a pin 37 supported by the bar- 38. Thestationary bar 33 is secured at 380. to the trains 255 or themachine. A vertical standard 42 is secured-at its top 54 to the bar 38. The lower part of the standard 42 supports the known wipers 60 by bolts 53, which wipers 5,3 are shown in dotted lines since they are not part of the inven. tion and-which wipers are fiat pieces of rubber or the like, and which wipers are used to apply the main or body labels which require less than 180 of adhesive surface. The bar di has a siot 45 (Fig, 10). Ihe rack 49 is part of the bar 411a, and the rack 4| is part of the bar Ma held by screws tlb. Cne of a pair of Wiper'supporting rods i5 is secured to the movable. bar Ma, and tbw e ,o t t Q w p s i se ur d t t movable bar normall t i s a s seared ea h othe a ehev it Y'rW B wi e t s ce, post .16 b twesat. alterna rod 5 ec r dto he be fiscontrolled by rack 66, and each of-the intervening rods i5 is secured to the bar lia controlled by the rack 44. so wi h. e ch. movement qr-the .barsldlia and t ll a p r o ver ical rods tim rmovedtoand ire The number. ofzp irs: Qf. Y9K":

tical rods I5 depends on the number of tracks, and the number of tracks depends on the width of the labelling machine. The lever engaging the pin 35 moves the bar 4 in, and its rack ll, and the rack 4i rotates the pinion 3b, and the pinion 36 moves the rack l!) and bar 40a. Thereby, the aforesaid open position of any pair of rods [5 is changed to a closed position, and when the pressure of the wipers H! has been completed, the rods are moved in the opposite direction until the open position is again obtained. The rods l5 have brackets it secured by bolts H to the bars 40a and 41a respectively.

As stated, the rack M is secured by screws Mb to the extension bar did, and the rack 40 is secured by screws 5th to the extension bar 48a.

"The bell crank orelbow lever 32 is operated by any suitable mechanism under cam control. In Figs. 5 and 6, a leverbfi secured to the elbow lever 3-2is pivoted at 32a, to a supporting bracket 33 on the frame of themachine. The end of the lever 50 is pivotally connected at hi to a crankarrn 52 secured to a shaft 53. The shaft'53 is rotatably moved by lever E i (Fig. 5) having a cam follower 5.5, engagin a cam '56, of suitable conformation to cause the pin 35 to which one end of the'bell crank is pivoted, to be moved, to and fro, the pin 35 being made part of the rack bar Ma (Fig. 10).

The cam 56 is rotated on .a shaftBB, which has a gear 59, suitably actuated, in the manner known.

As stated, known wipers 6!) of the main. label, which label does not present the same problem as a neck label, are shown in Fig. 5 in dotted lines. Should it be desired to have main labels applied to move more than of the bottle circumfer: ence, then the mainlabel wipers would be modi-r fled according to the invention described and em.- bodied in the improved neck label wipers.

Any suitable number of pairs of wipers may be arranged across the front of the labelling mas chine, depending on the number of bottles fed in, that is, upon the number of tracks 30; but for simplicity such a plurality has not been shown.

I have described several forms of my inventtion, butobviously various changes may be made in. the details disclosed without departingfrom the spirit of the invention as set out in th fol-.-. lowing claims,

I claim:

1. In a labelling machine having a track for the support of moving bottles to be labelled, a pair of wipers, one disposed at each side of the bottle during the passage of the bottle between the wipers, and adapted to retain a label to be applied to the bottle neck, the combination of a, support for each wiper, a yieldable and resilient rubber wiper having a concave contour at its inner surface with a portion of lesser thickness at the support and secured to the support, and a portion of greater thickness extending free at the support, and means at the upper end of each support for moving the wipers towards each other during the passage of the bottle-between the Wipers, and for moving the wipers away. from each other a te he bo le has sed be ond the W per 2. In a labelling'rnachine, a winner-resilient material, having a plane top and'bottom and 5a plane side, the side opposite to the plane side be.-. ing concavely curved, with one end of the wiper being narrower than the other end, said nar..- rewerwend having a bore for a fastening member.

3. In a labelling machine, .a pair of wipers spaced to permit the passage between the same of a neck of a bottle, said wipers extending in the direction of movement of said bottle and having curved opposed inner surfaces converging toward each other, and means for moving said wipers towards each other, including a vertical support for each wiper,,a rack bar secured to each support, a pinion between said rack bars for moving the rack bars in opposite directions, and means for movin the pinion to and fro, the movement of the pinion in one direction moving each rack bar in one direction, and the movement of the pinion in the opposite direction moving each rack bar in the direction opposite to its first movement, whereby the wipers are moved towards and away from each other.

4. In a machine for applying labels to receptacles moving along a track, a pair of resilient wipers, separate movable means engaging each wiper and supporting the wipers above and adjacent to opposite sides of said track, said wipers having fre ends extending substantially in the direction of movement of said bottles, and having inner surfaces converging toward each other in the direction of movement of said receptacles, and means for moving said movable means toward and away from each other.

5. In a machine for applying labels to receptacles, a support, a pair of supporting elements mounted on said support for movement toward and away from each other, means for moving a receptacl between said supporting elements, a pair of resilient wipers, each connected to a different one of said elements and having a free end portion extending in the direction of movement of said receptacle, said wipers having inner surfaces converging toward each other in the direction of movement of said receptacle for engagement with opposite sides of said receptacle, and means for moving said supporting elements toward and away from each other.

6. In a machine for applying labels to receptacles, a support, a pair of supporting elements mounted on said support for movement toward and away from each other, means for moving a receptacle between said supporting elements, a pair of resilient wipers, each connected to a different one of said elements and having a free end portion extending in the direction of movement of said receptacle, said wipers having concavely curved inner surfaces converging toward each other in the direction of movement of said receptacle for engagement with opposite sides of said receptacle, and means for moving said supporting elements toward and away from each other.

7. In a labelling machine, a pair of resilient wipers for engaging opposite sides of a receptacle moving along a path, and means engaging one end of each wiper for supporting the wipers in substantially parallel relation to said path, said wipers having inner opposed concavely curved edges converging in the direction of movement of said receptacle from adjacent their said one ends toward their opposite ends.

GEORGE OLM.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,288,966 Nielsen Dec. 24, 1918 1,326,201 Johnson et al Dec. 30, 1919 

